Exploring the Galveston Bay Area

Kemah Boardwalk and shopping area

Off we went this morning to see what's out and about in the area. We drove to the Galveston Bay area for breakfast. We had trouble finding something, so we stopped at the Kemah Boardwalk, a fun place for families. We found a little grill inside the boardwalk area and it was fine. The town of Kemah is a little fishing village along Galveston Bay. The boardwalk looks beautiful and is kept very clean. There are restaurants, shopping boutiques and amusement park rides for younger children. The landscaping is beautifully done and the very new looking boardwalk wraps around restaurants like Saltgrass Steakhouse, Landry's, the Red Japanese steakhouse, and also The Flying Dutchman Restaurant. There are great little stores all around the complex.  If it's a warm day, you can be "sittin' on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away..." (Otis Redding)

Later, we went looking at other RV campgrounds and came back thinking we've got one of the most reasonably priced, safe, and pretty spots to sit for a month. We looked at Marina Bay RV Resort, and although they had three small pools, and an adults only section, it felt like you were lined up in a parking lot..no trees, and a large apartment complex across the lot from the RV resort, plus trash dumpsters and a little dried up swamp on the other side. We checked out some more RV places, and they definitely were not safe nor in a nice place or there was zero views. Here, we have a great view of the bayou, we're right on it! And, we have wild parrots! Yep, you heard that right! Lots of green parrots which people are feeding here. Unfortunately, the blackbirds are equally competing for the bird seed people put out so there are more blackbirds than there are parrots. They seem to co-exist peacefully at the feeders.

On our travels this morning, we saw what a beautiful town Galveston is...there is some incredible architecture here, some beautiful Victorian homes and mansions, and an area called The Strand...a street filled with boutiques and unique places to eat and shop. We'll be checking that out soon...that's a mother/daughter trip for sure!   See you later....

Galveston Bay, Here We Come!

Seven and half hours of driving thru LOTS of construction and cement barrier walls..Eldo is a little stressed out this evening...(I knitted a LOT today.) I even got rattled sometimes myself, and got lost in where I was in my knitting pattern so I had to unravel and start over. Sometimes there very little stress in driving long distances, sometimes there's a LOT. Today we tried to stop for diesel fuel at a place and the truck/car lane entrance and exits were not clear from the road. We took a chance, pulled in, and OH, CRAP! We went in the "NO TRUCKS" entrance. There was a reason for that. The lane to the back of the station was blocked. We got too far into the gas station to be able to turn around. So-o-o-o-o, while Eldy was about to do the Christmas Story movie father routine (when the dad is down in the basement trying to fix the furnace which is spewing black soot all over the house, and cussing up a storm but you can't tell what he's yelling, you just know he's saying every cuss word in the book), I tried to calm Eldy down..."It's ok, honey...we'll just unhook the car, you can back up and turn around. Besides, I needed to run the car a little anyway"...or run the risk of a dead battery upon our arrival. We unhooked, quickly, and we got turned around just fine...it's just stressful at the time it happens. And it didn't help that some idiot was parked right at the entrance of the gas station, engrossed in his cell phone and didn't see us trying to come in, which made our entrance all the more difficult...I told Eldy he should have leaned on his dual Hadley air horns (which sound like a huge semi's horn) which might have made the guy sit up, take notice and have to use the restroom, er, MOVE, but Eldy is a nice guy and he wouldn't do that. Hm-m-m-m, another reason for me to get in the driver's seat? I LIKE the sound of those dual horns--they're AWESOME!

We are here in TEXAS, at the Galveston Bay RV campground. And of course, after seven hours, the car battery was dead when we arrived...but now, we don't get out of shape about it..we just whip out our trusty battery charger and within two minutes, the car is up and running again...best 69.95 we ever spent on accessories for the motor home!

This is a nice place, much prettier than where we stayed last in New Orleans...very informal check-in. No rules sheets, no instructions, no password for the wi-fi. We'll get all that tomorrow and get the info on everything near to here...can't wait to see my daughter, Kerry, who lives in Texas, about an hour from here. She's got all kinds of plans for mother /daughter time. She's a free lance writer, writing stories for preteen girls and going to school to become a teacher...we're going to spend all day Saturday at a festival to promote her books she's written. And we're going to YAK all day and catch up! I haven't seen her since her birthday in early September.

Our site is on a bayou. We are out in the open, no trees except for the lovely palm in front on the bank of the bayou....not much across the way to see, and not sure what lies on the other side, but we're looking forward to a great stay here...$450.00 for a whole month to be on the water--free wifi, no cable, water, sewer, electric is extra. This will be the longest we've stayed in any one place. The only thing we're worried about is the wind and our awning toppers. Eldy noticed some people have taken their awning toppers OFF. He's been reading reports about the wind here at this particular place and Texas in general, so we're going to have to watch and wait and see. The awning toppers make quite a racket when there's any wind over 20 mph. and it's really hard to sleep. It sounds like they are going to be ripped right off the coach, they bang and flap so much! We'll see what we need to do when the wind returns....we can always pull in the slides for the night...he's a worrier, that Eldo! See you tomorrow!

The Big Easy

Lots of wrought iron and cast iron work all over the city

interesting door panels

How do you cover New Orleans in one day? You can't...so we hit the highlights of the city during the day time...we're saving the nightlife for our next visit...It's CARNIVAL DAYS so the preliminary mardi gras festivities have started...the beads, the masks are out, the preparation for the country's biggest party is underway. But first, we rode the shuttle from our campground over to take the tour on the Greyliner--the Super City/Katrina tour. This gives you a great overview of the city. We drove thru the 9th ward and others, desolation and debris everywhere. Almost six years later and the city is still struggling...poverty has always been there but the hurricane damage just hits it home harder. I saw a beautiful snow white egret walking in a terribly blighted area, just walking thru someone's yard. We saw Brad Pitt's efforts to make a dent in the despair of the city...his modern homes are very unusual--solar panels, colorful, odd roof angles, but very interesting. They are modular and ultra modern in style and stick out like a sore thumb in some awful looking places. We went from desolation to ritz and glitz. After seeing the hurricane damage we visited the more beautiful parts of New Orleans--the museums, the botanical gardens, Esplanade Street where are the fantastic styles of architectural sit side by side, house after house. We saw the exclusive men's and women's clubs where you have to be a millionaire to join. We saw the most amazing mansions.

The city was not evenly flooded...I thought the entire city was under water when the levees broke but there are parts that were NOT flooded, some that were just a little flooded, and some majorly flooded. The city is approximately 50% high ground and 50% low ground, so different areas were affected differently depending on income level, and real estate location. Water control is the city's major concern--they are surrounded on three sides by water, it rains an average of 65" per year, so water control is ALWAYS a problem. I saw an article in a local newspaper where they are having problems with the water pipes and pumping systems continually breaking. It seemed like there was ground construction everywhere, crews working on streets and water lines.

Almost bought one of these!

Beads everywhere, hanging from street signs, trees, wires...lots of gold, green and purple banners, fleur de lis everywhere...wreaths on doors were all the shiny, metallic beads, foil colors of purple, green, silver, and gold...The fleur de lis symbol has been adopted by the city as a sign of hope and recovery..."We will never forget Hurricane Katrina..." You can take a tour of the making of Mardi Gras, which I bet would be very interesting! There are swamp tours, cemetery tours, dinner/jazz tours, ghost tours, French Quarter tours, and steamboat tours. I thought ours today was excellent. Thirty-two dollars a person for two and half hours combining the hurricane areas with the extensive downtown tour. Very nice bus....

We stopped at one of the 42 cemeteries that are in New Orleans. There are many, many interesting stories to cemeteries but we just had a quick rest break here to walk around and look for about ten minutes so we did not get to hear any. The one we saw was an above ground cemetery. People buy a family plot, and then everybody in the family shares that crypt. It was such a gloomy, rainy day that it added to the grave atmosphere...(insert groan) After the tour, we walked around for awhile, down Bourbon Street, Royal Street and a couple other ones. We ate lunch at O'Brien's, home of the famous Hurricane drink. Eldy had one, but I just took a sip. Rum is not one of my favorites! Delicious meal outside in the courtyard with fountains...it was beautiful...New Orleans is a very old city but filled with history, architecture, interesting people, and interesting events, fabulous music. Because it was so windy and chilly today, we had five hours till the last shuttle would be able to pick us up. We decided to head back home and had to take a cab. Our last contact with New Orleans would be our cab driver, who told us he stayed during the hurricane, not realizing it wasn't going to be the hurricane that would do him in, but the levees breaking. He and his family were on the top of the roof of their house, water to the top of the roof before they finally got rescued. He said he learned his lesson--he rebuilt but he's never going to stay during another hurricane...he'll leave.....

Jackson Square

We saw at least three of these guys similarly dressed...they pose and remain motionless for long periods of time until someone takes a photo or goes up to talk to them...

Corner building architecture

We didn't have a beignet (French pastry/donut), we didn't have a po-boy (sandwich), we didn't hear the jazz, we didn't have gumbo...but we will next time!  On the road tomorrow for Texas...yee-haw! Here's one last glimpse of the "Big Easy" streets....

N'awlans (New Orleans)

Nice drive today...along I-10...as we got into Alabama, specifically Mobile, we encountered our first tunnel..it was a shorty, but you still get a little nervous going through, seeing those curving walls seeming to hug the motor home...what if you got a flat tire in the tunnel? Then what? Well, the tunnel was not long at all, and it was a welcoming sight (as it is any time) to see the "light at the end of the tunnel"....[groan, says E. -- and everybody else reading this blog!]

Already had my first introduction to the correct way to say things down here...went to get a pop at the clubhouse bar at Pontchartrain Landing, where we are stopping for two days, and I was instructed to NOT say, "What kind of pop do you have?" But "What kind of Coke do you have?" All pop is called Coke, no matter whether it's Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Coke, Sprite, etc. You say you want a Coke, and then they ask what kind!? I'm a Coke fiend, full bore, no diet on this one, so I already like New Orleans! OK, I better get my list out to understand what people are talking about down here...the list is just the tip of the iceberg, and I'll bet there are tons of things not on this introductory list of Louisiana talk.

our site at Pontchartrain Landing

view on one side of the channel

View on another side of the park, much better!

Pontchartrain Landing has a great looking website...but the park itself is very plain...all gravel roads and sites...decent little showerhouse/restrooms. It's on the Navigational Canal, but the view from many angles is of abandoned warehouses across the canal, and bridge construction. A few sites have views of the boat/shipyard which is a nicer view on the channel. This is a newer park and it's gated, making this a secure place to stay. The great thing is, it's only 11 minutes to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street and the rates are very reasonable to be this close to the city. Free wi-fi, (but it's not working!) free cable. With the Passport of America rate, it's 33.00 a night, and of course, more, if you were here during Mardi Gras. They even rent houseboats here. It looks to us as though they are continuing to make improvements and add things. The staff is really friendly and they offer discounts for the tours if you book through the campground office.

Pontchartrain Park on a rainy day

So tomorrow, we are going into New Orleans to take a combined Hurricane Katrina/Super City tour...should be VERY interesting! Even if it does rain all day, which it is supposed to do...We'll tell you all about it later.....until then......

A Sunday Drive

Let's see..we started at 9:30 this morning..on our way out of the Naples Motorcoach Resort, I took this photo of a Newell  RV. Looks like a really nice rig, doesn't it? This nice rig is a million dollar coach! Now figure the Hummer in with it with its custom paint job. Yikes! I've seen photos of these coaches in magazines...the interiors are quite glitzy. Wonder what you get inside for a million dollars? And my other question is, what do these people do for a living, or what did they used to do? You don't see these at RV shows, they are custom coaches and take months to build...Curiosity is one of my virtues (and curiosity killed the cat! says E.) I might have stopped and chatted with the owners had I seen them out and about.
But we never did see anybody there.

Staged photo, lol!

After knitting one dishcloth, one partial Easter egg (these are going to be really unique in color--they're from sock yarn), three magazines and  a nap during the day today while Eldy was driving, we stopped for the night. That's eight hours of driving for my Eldy and about 450 miles....what a guy! We picked a Passport America campground in Quincy, FL. for 20.00 a night...we could have stayed at Wally World, but Eldy really wanted to kick back and relax and be able to put the slides out. That's a no-no at Walmart. Uneventful drive today except for two sightings of deer, three or four of them several miles apart on I-10...on the WRONG side of the tall fence, on the highway shoulder just ready to run out and be whacked by a car or RV.  Eldo was nervous! We are spending one night at Beaver Creek Campground...where's the creek? We have no idea. This is a grassy field behind a BP gas station, exit 174. The campground is very close to the interstate so it's a one night stop, just electric, which is fine by us. It's 50 amp, and very few people are here so we shouldn't have any electrical problems. We just have car problems....nothing much, just another D.O.A. battery. Dang this car! It looks like I'm gonna have to crawl under the dash and look for the fuse I'm supposed to pull! Why me, you say? Isn't that a man's job? Nope! It goes to the person who has the better knees, and that would be me. (I would if I could! says E.) No problem, honey! I have to carry my weight around here since I don't drive...gonna work on that one when we get out to Arizona..need to get some driving under my belt in this Phaeton.

It's a cold, starry night out tonight..incredibly beautiful night sky because there's no light pollution. If it wasn't so cold, we'd be outside star gazing...but football is calling Eldy, so I'm gonna knit my little fingers off tonight while he watches the game.

We MIGHT be going to New Orleans! Woo-hoo! I've never been there! We've got a campground in mind, Pontchartrain Landing. It should be a doable drive for Monday, about 350 miles. We'll probably stay two nights so we can see the town Tuesday. There's a shuttle service for 4.00 a person that takes you to town and back. Sounds like a great deal! We've heard New Orleans can be a little dicey as far as crime goes, so we'll be careful....


You never know what Eldo has planned...we'll see what happens tomorrow...life is certainly an adventure with Eldo around!

Do We Stay or Do We Go?

Seventy-two degrees or twenty-two degrees?  It's a NO-BRAINER!  72 degrees wins every time! We are staying another day at Naples Motorcoach Resort after reading about the temperatures in the twenties in northern Florida and Mississippi. One more day here in Naples gives us a little more wiggle room for a warming trend starting Sunday in the northern parts of the state. We are definitely acting more like snowbirds, deciding not to move until it warms up. HOWEVER, let it be known that I actually don't mind mind heading out, I'm ready for cooler temperatures. ("What am I going to do with you? Ship you on a plane to Minnesota?" says E.) It's actually only in the mid fifties today, a cold front came through. Wonder how long it would take us to be like Floridians to get acclimated to southern temperatures and then find that 60 degrees is COLD?  You can tell who the northerners are by what people wear down here when it gets to the 60's.  People who have lived here for a long time don sweaters, jackets and hats when it's in the low 60's and they are shivering! People from up north might wear a long sleeve tee shirt, still have shorts on and be very comfortable.

Eldy in hot water, lol! 

What's funny is, last night we were sitting in the clubhouse with two other couples and we were all talking about how we check our cell phones every day for the weather "back home", and how we text our kids on a daily basis what the temperatures are here! And sometimes, just to tease a bit more, we send photos of what we are doing along with the latest temperature report...We sent this photo to Eldy's kids to tease them. It was -6 degrees back home when we sent it. That's pretty darn cold for Indiana!

Yesterday we enjoyed ourselves at the RV show in Fort Myers. We signed up for every possible free RV resort stay we could find!

back

While we were signing up for freebies, we got to spin the wheel on a couple of vendor booths. Eldy won a month's stay at a certain campgrounds in Texas for 179.00. We will definitely check that out when we are down there as to the facilities. There were a choice of three places down at the very southern tip of Texas or some in Florida. While walking around, we ran  into two vendors that were at Nick's Rally last summer in August in Elkhart. It was like meeting old friends... We chatted for awhile. It was really great to catch up with them on where they had been and where they were going. We saw this enterprising gentleman who had a great voice and serenaded the visitors at the show. He had his chair decorated really terrifically in true Florida style!

Later in the evening, we went to the clubhouse to check out the entertainment and chatted with two couples who are "neighbors" on lots nearby to ours. There was music so we even did a little dancing. A couple who came out on the dance floor with us happened to ask where Eldy was from. He says, Elkhart, and they went crazy with questions..REALLY? Where at? We're from Elkhart, too! And that was fun for Eldy to have a little hometown chat with people who know your hometown area as well as you do...There are all kinds of neighbors when you RV..neighbors beside you at your site or anybody on your row at the campground but also we consider anybody "neighbors" to be someone who has lived in your hometown. It's just another way to feel more connected in the traveling world of RVers. The other day we even traveled down the road a few extra miles to leave a note at the campground site of fellow bloggers, Howard and Linda Payne.  We met them this summer in Michigan and Eldy had been following their blog, RV Dreams for a couple of years. They weren't home, so we let them know we were in town and in the same area and just gave them a friendly hello note. They are staying at a campground called Midway, in the Everglades, for 19.00 a night, right on 41. Fifty amp hookup but no water or sewer hookup.

By following blogs, we learn lots of great information-- tips and traveling destinations are just the tip of the iceberg. I would say RVers tend to make friendships quickly. By reading each other's blogs, we become a part of their lives and when we finally do meet up with them, it's like meeting old friends and we feel like we've known them for a long time.

We are really going to miss Naples when we leave....this is one of the most beautiful, clean cities we have ever seen in our 60 plus years of living...you are minutes from the Everglades, boating, islands, wonderful restaurants, the wildlife is incredible, and the beauty of nature is endless...

Roseate spoonbill flying in 10,000 Islands Preserve

Wish I could get little videos back into the blog now and then..having trouble with learning imovie and sharing little videos in the proper size. Had a funny little video of my jackhammering ibis bird friends in a feeding frenzy outside our motor home today, but just couldn't get it loaded properly! I was able to do it more easily when I had a PC for some reason. Stay tuned, one of these days, I'll have it figured out... We'll be on the road DEFINITELY Sunday morning early, heading for northern Florida. See you on the road!

Fakahatchee Strand Preserve

We ventured a little farther east on 41 yesterday....past 10,000 Islands Preserve, about another 25 miles east to the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve which sits on a gently sloping limestone plain. This is a very unique preserve in southern Florida and it's part of the Big Cypress Swamp. Channels have been formed over millions of years from the limestone dissolving. The local term for the channels or sloughs is called "strand". You see this word "strand" used a lot in this part of Florida. There are cypress forests and open plains and grasslands, which make for some unique habitat for flowers and trees and animals. The strand is 20 miles long and 3-5 miles wide. It contains the largest stand of native royal palm trees and the largest concentration of orchids in North America. There are some endangered animals here as well--the Everglades mink, the Florida panther, woodstorks, and others.

Two yards away!

We did not go into the swamps to see the orchids. I would have loved to have seen some of them....but it's 60.00 a person for a three to four hour walk with a naturalist, and only available on certain Saturdays and other arranged times. We did take a drive however, on the Janes Memorial Scenic drive, an 11 mile limestone, washboard road for some of it. Saw about 8 gators....a large doe ran across the road, and an imagined panther WA-A-A-A-Y down the road, actually couldn't tell what it was! (just some wishful thinking!) The gators were right at the side of the road, like TWO YARDS from the door. I stayed in the car....smart gal! (You're finally getting the message, woman! says E.) We saw some hawks, a big turtle, and the usual egrets and ibis. The preserve looks just like a tropical jungle with mangled trees and swamps mixed in along both sides of the road and most of the road is very narrow and rough...the park ranger told us that a photographer had seen a female panther with two cubs on Janes scenic drive at 10:30 in the morning about two weeks ago. He showed me her photos on the computer. They were wonderful! Of course she had a 1500.00 camera with an additional 1500.00 lens so the shots were terrific! With our little camera, the panthers would have looked like little tan fuzzballs, probably

Then, on the way back, we watched for gators on 41 again...gater after gater after gater, and really big ones! These were much easier to see from the highway this further east. There's a welcome center on 41 east, about 45 miles from Naples...it's called the Oasis Center. There's a boardwalk there with a canal FULL of huge alligators..we stopped to watch them. One of them had gotten a bird and two others were trying to take it away from him...There was lots of thrashing going on in the water, but most of it underneath...couldn't get any photos of that, they were a little too far down the canal to view. Right at the entrance of the welcome center on the other side of it, the UNPROTECTED SIDE just over the guardrail, were two humongous alligators. People kept stopping on foot walking from the parking lot over to them to take their photos right in front of them, just a few feet away, yours truly, included. The park ranger had to come out and announce thru a loudspeaker to GET AWAY FROM THE ALLIGATORS!!!! IT'S NOT SAFE TO BE SO CLOSE! I had already left by then....(You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days! says E.)

One last stop today...boardwalk at Fakahatchee Strand....this is not at the park itself but back on 41 heading west towards Naples, near Indian Village....this boardwalk takes you back into the swamp. We saw this egret and people said there was an alligator that had just snatched a bird and went underwater with it, we missed it!  Little signs along the way tell you about plants and what you are seeing...I learned that the gambusia is a kind of fish that eats mosquitoes and it bears its young ALIVE, it doesn't lay eggs! You see lots of "air plants" here...those are called epiphytes (eppy-fights)...they look like they are separate plants growing right out of the trees. They are! They just use the trees for support and get all their food from the rain, sun, and air. Spanish moss is an epiphyte and so are bromeliads and onion orchids.  We saw a bald eagles nest. Man, those nests are HUGE! I think someone told me they just keep adding to them every year and that they can eventually weigh over 1,000 pounds? On the way out of the park, close to the parking lot, I smelled something really really nice...I thought, hmmmm, orchids? gardenias?  It was the portable toilets at the entrance to the park walk! I'm glad nobody heard me comment about the nice smell and what was that wonderful flower I was smelling!?

It's almost time to leave for Texas...we'll be leaving early Saturday morning...not sure how far we will get in one day, but we will be sad to leave Naples...there's so much here, and it's so beautiful...there are many RV parks and places to stay here..we explored a couple of campgrounds yesterday that had just electric and that's it...it would cost us about 10.00 a night to stay there...we'll definitely be back and want to stay there for part of our visit next year....we're heading to Fort Myers today to see the RV show vendors....see you later!

PS. Just a quick note about the RV show...we signed up for Thousand Trails membership for one zone. They are offering any one zone membership for a fee of $199.99 as opposed to 499.00. If anybody is interested in signing up for that rate, they are offering the same deal as the Tampa show. If you contact me and I refer you, you can get that same rate even if you weren't at either show. There's a limited number of memberships available and it expires Sunday, January 23. Leave a comment on the blog if you are interested and I'll get back with you asap.